Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Your Source For Clonie News

Clonie Gowen is a Day 1, Heat 2 (whatever that means) elimination in the Bay 101 Shooting Stars tourney. TBR, recognize this play? I have spent years making you my bitch with similar donkey moves:

[From pokerwire.com]
Clonie raised to 150 preflop and Ali Eslami called. The flop came [4][6][7] with two []. Gowen bet 250, Eslami raised to 1,325, Gowen reraised to 4,500, Eslami pushed all in for a total of 10k, and Gowen called. The players showed:

Clonie Gowen [K][K]
Ali Eslami [6♥][7♥]

The turn and river were blanks and Gowen was eliminated.

Damn?

Tulsa told me I had to post this e-mail recapping my adventures at the Kowboys Tourney over the weekend. If you hate it, blame him.

Full field of 60 players. Scott and I played.

I drew a table that included four players who made the final table from the last $300 buy-in, plus a gent by the name of Damon, considered by many to be the best player in the field (even over Merkow).

For the most part, play was solid. Every table probably had three weak players. Structure was player friendly. Everyone started with $10k in chips and first blinds were $25-$50. Blind levels lasted 25 minutes.

Fawcett lost $5000 on the first hand when the small blind whacked him with aces. Action at my table was fairly tight with few pots worth more than $2000 during the first four levels. Won three hands before the first break without having to show anything down. Chip stack was $12,000 with the average stack around $10,500.

Saw nothing during the next four levels and my chip stack dwindled to around $10,500.

Interestingly, going in to the second break, there were still 54 players alive.

Played these hands after the second break that tolled my end:

· Blinds $300-$600. First position goes all-in for less with $400. Fold to me in the small blind and I call with 7d2d. BB calls. Flop comes rags, but I pair my deuce. I lead out for $1000. BB folds showing A-4. All-in shows 8-3 and the hammer holds.
· Blinds $300-$600. With three callers in front of me, I call with KQ in SB. Player to my left (who had a lot of chips, but only because he sucked out five times, raises to $1800. Two of the three callers call again, and now thinking that I can only get in trouble with KQ I fold. Flop comes K-rag-rag. SB and a tight player spit at each other, with SB ultimately taking down a $12,000 pot. Turns out he had ace-high, while the tight player folded pocket 5’s. Ugh.
· Blinds $500-$1000. I am on the button. All fold to player to my right who calls. I have KJo and feel I can take the pot down right there. Only player I am concerned with is BB who is short-stacked, but has laid down a lot of hands. I know he won’t call unless he has something big. I raise to $3500. SB folds and BB goes into the tank. He reluctantly shoves the rest of his stack into the middle (just over $5000). First bettor folds. Now pot-stuck, I call. BB turns over As9s. Makes his flush on the river, although I was never ahead. He later said he was getting impatient and thought he was behind when he made the call. Unfortunate time to bluff on my part.
· Now seriously short stacked, I go all-in with JJ and dipshit to my left calls saying, “Sorry, but I got you.” He turns over A-Q(?). My jacks hold.
· Two hands later I go all-in with QQ and the other donkey at our table re-raises all in to isolate me and turns over K-9. King on the flop and another on the turn and I am out in the mid-30’s (and it is after 11pm). The guy who crushed me had around $45k in chips at that point and had the largest stack at the table by a margin of over 2-to-1. Within 20 minutes he was down to $5k. Dick.

Saw this hand early on:

With blinds at $75-$150, UTG raises to $500. UTG+1 re-raises to $1000. UTG+3 calls (the donkey who ultimately knocked me out). UTG re-re raises to $2000. UTG+1 moves all-in. UTG+3 calls. UTG folds. UTG shows AKs. UTG+1 holds KK. UTG holds AA. Aces hold.

On the whole, though, solid play and a well-run tournament. Not only that, but those that placed in the tournament actually received their prizes that evening.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Damn

Shane and I played in the $500 tournament at Kowboy's on Friday night. Also in attendance were Rounder clubbers Como and Alicia.

I went out about 42nd after donking off half my chips on the FIRST hand of the night from the button when the SB had pocket aces...damn. Shane went all in and got fairly crippled with decent hand only to get pocket queens on the very next hand...damn timing. As for Como, I was just watching Shane get busted when I look one table over and see Como with all his chips in the middle looking at me and shaking his head. So I shot over there and did not have a chance to look the board over when the river was dealt an 8. All I had time to see was Como's pocket 8's face up so I gave a little celebratory cheer only for him to say "no Fawcett that makes his straight"...damn straight. Not sure how Alicia ended up as Como and I had to head to Knox Street pub where we found an EXTREMELY drinky Tiny B, Freeze, and Zach B. I am "only" 32 but it feels on the verge of pedophillia watching a bunch of 30-35 year old men stand in a corner and discuss 22 year old girls dancing abilities...damn aging.

Friday, February 24, 2006

Clonie Out 8th

Clonie played great, getting knocked out on the TV bubble +1. (Details here.) She finished 8th when her 10-10 couldn't overcome Barry Greenstein's J-J. No word on whether or not Clonie, when she called Greenstein's re-raise of $250K, muttered the famous Sang line, "Fuck it, crack 'em." In related news, the people with whom she's pictured below, Jerome Bettis and TBR, can't seem to dislodge the magic horseshoes they find crammed up their asses. Bettis gets credit for delivering a Super Bowl with his 2.2 yards per carry, and Pink gets credit for playing good poker when people hand him money.

As my rankings indicated, though, people aren't giving this guy enough credit as a rising Batface star.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Clonie Is On Top

Well, that might be stretching it. But the honorary Batface is not on the bottom. She is currently 35th of 98 players left in the L.A. Poker Classic WPT Invitational, sandwiched between Barry Greenstein and Johan Storakers (who finished second to Alex Brenes last year). As one of the four Batfaces whom Clonie doesn't hate, and as someone who danced with her as recently as two weeks ago, I feel compelled to offer not only my sympathy but my support as well: Go Batfaces!

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Yet Another Reason Danang is Dicey

When we gather for our regular weeknight home game ("Go Home Game!") in Dicey East Dallas, a few hundred feet from a recent murder, I often wonder if I'm the only one who thinks we're sitting ducks. I wonder if I'm the only one occasionally looking out the window, worried about a gun-wielding maniac bursting through the front door. Apparently not.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Shane makes me smile

In case nobody is aware Andy Beal is smart... www.bealconjecture.com if you don't have much to do.

Since I have no ability to write WHATSOEVER, I will just post Shane's humor. Below is his email to me after our deep discussion of the assertions Beal makes in his conjecture.



Can’t you just imagine the interesting table talk resulting from this?

Doyle Brunson: Andy, you might have a hand here, but I feel like gambling. I’ll raise.
Andy Beal: That’s an interesting perspective, Doyle. I remember when I was noodling around on Fermat’s Last Theorem, or “FLT” as we numbers enthusiasts like to call it. At many times, I felt like I just had to stop looking solely at empirical data and start taking some risks, albeit educated ones.
DB: I don’t know what you just said. You said something about noodles and an empire. There was this old Chinese restaurant in Beaumont called “Royal Empire”. I never ate noodles there, though.
AB: I’ll re-raise. However, I’m talking about a mathematical equation. It relates to the supposed impossibility of any two co-prime numbers being raised to an identical exponent and their sum equaling a corresponding sum when raised to the same exponent.
DB: Uh, OK. You know, I killed a man once.

Know When to Fold Them

We had our home game last night instead of our typical Thursday night, and my play remained as poor as it has all year. Even though I had a good couple of weeks lately, I sucked badly last night. I don't know if it was that I didn't get many hands so I was bored to death, or just wasn't into the game last night. I let several people draw for free, which came back to bite me in the ass on the turn and river. However, my biggest problem has been knowing when to lay down a hand. I got suckered into several river bets which I should have known I was beat. I had several strong second place hands but could have saved a ton of money by just folding. The only highlight was beating Scott heads up finally after the game.

I know my blogs lack much entertainment value, but at least it is a post.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Okie Update

I know that the plethora of readers we have out there in the blogger world would love to hear how the great TBR and other Batfaces did in Oklahoma this past week.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

table captain goes supernova


this is very bad news for our home game.

I am going to play poker

at the Oklahoma State Poker Championship in Tulsa this week. I'll be there tomorrow and Friday, trying to qualify for the Main Event on Sunday and/or the PL Holdem Event Friday night. Come out and take a shot if you've got nothing better to do. Look for me, I'll be the one screaming "re-buy!" Batface Tagg should be there by Sunday, and maybe we can even convince Tulsa to make an appearance at his namesake.

Scott Fawcett should come out following his recent 2nd place finish in the charity event, but methinks he too scared.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

My street cred...

I know I rebought 5 times and bought a seat at the final table, but where did Randy's post go?

Fo Shizzle

Looks like Snoop Dogg is getting in on the poker craze. He is hosting a $2 million tournament on a boat off Miami with various rappers and other entertainers. Not sure if that will be a tournament I will be entering. Will there be a "West Coast vs. East Coast" side bet?